My Monkey is Four!

Yesterday was my son's birthday!  Even though I had made his 4lash shirt last week, I really wanted to use this design, too:

When Designs by JuJu posted a preview of her sock monkey alphabet on Facebook, I asked about numbers, specifically thinking of Dashiell! The sock monkey number set was released in time for me to grab it during her awesome Black Friday sale, but I didn't make time to stitch it until this week!! December is crazy...

 Yesterday was also Dashiell's last day of preschool before winter break, and hence a Christmas program and party. So I used red and green in the design to make it a 2-for-1 special! Dashiell picked the striped fabric out of four choices--this won because his favorite color is dark brown. Weird, right? I'm pleased with it, and it doesn't scream Christmas, so hopefully he will continue to wear it over the next few months.
Birthdays aren't usually celebrated with quite so much food at preschool :)

 And Santa stopped by for a visit! What a special day!

Oh, before I sign off, I want to give a quick shout out to excellent digitizing. Look at how the 4 is tacked down:

I love this!! Sometimes when you buy alphabet or number sets the complete letter is sewn down and the extra designs are slapped on top. Not so here!! And I'm thankful. Otherwise there would be stripes showing through the monkey's hand instead of it being the crisp ivory color that it is. Thanks DBJJ for setting me up for success!!